This session presented out on findings from research done on USC’s recent implementation of the discovery layer Summon. The presenters did a review based on relevance of returned results for a smaller sub-set of searches, and compared them to both Google and Google Scholar. Some really unexpected findings, and some really great strategies for transforming the iffy performance of our tools into new approaches for teaching information literacy in our organizations. Read on!

Web scale discovery tools

prehosted – preindexed content – faster

federated search tools – slowness problems – live searches in all these databases

most discovery tools have faceted searching

Have we chosen wisely?

bringing students back from Google – providing a more intuitive experience for novice searchers

Why USC got Summon –

1. provide better discoverability of large number of subscription DBs

2. provide relevant results to users

3. provide better user experience with library’s website

Motivation for our study – anecdotal complaints, get evidence about how successful Summon was in leading users to relevant sources